Ghostly Echoes (Jackaby #3)(34)

“Good effort. Ribbon for trying, Detective, but you’re off the mark.”

“Then who are you working for?”

“Not a chance. Hell hath no fury and all that, but the most your ghost girl can do is kill me. I’ve been through that. I can handle death. They would do far worse. They’re downright visionary in that way.”

“You’re underestimating me again,” said Jenny. “How well did that work for you last time?” Pavel said nothing.

“You may not have killed those women,” Jackaby interjected, “but you have plenty of blood on your hands.”

“Not at all,” Pavel said, attempting to sound casual, although his throat was tight. “I always wash up after meals.”

“Mrs. Beaumont?”

“She thought I was a dignitary. A count from Romania. She was useful for a time. Her blood was surprisingly sweet.”

“Mrs. Brisbee. Mr. Denson. Professor Hoole.” Jackaby rattled off victims.

“Yes, yes. I remember last week’s menu. Do you have a point?”

At the sound of her husband’s name, Cordelia Hoole stopped rocking. She peered over the desk, and I could see waves of emotions washing over her. Her hands were trembling.

Pavel noticed her, too. “Your husband didn’t put up much of a fight,” he said. “In case you were wondering.”

Cordelia Hoole swallowed. “Why?” she managed.

“Call it professional dissidence. Your darling Lawrence was a promising architect, but he found the nature of our work distasteful toward the end. I found his lack of cooperation equally distasteful—although I liked his carotid artery well enough.” He sneered smugly at the widow and licked his lips.

The words struck Cordelia Hoole with physical force. She buckled, but caught herself with one hand on the desk. She looked as though she might need to be sick.

“What was Hoole working on?” demanded Jackaby. “What did your benefactors want him to build?”

“Let me go and I’ll send you to ask him yourself,” Pavel snarled. I could see his muscles straining against Jenny’s will, but his invisible bonds held fast. He breathed heavily. “Better yet, why don’t you tell them, Miss Cavanaugh? You helped your busy little beau build it the first time. Tell them what you helped us create.”

Jenny’s scowl deepened. “I don’t—I don’t know.”

“So many things forgotten. The future, Miss Cavanaugh. Don’t you remember? Well, not your future, of course. Yours ended years ago. You’re just one of the forgotten things now, like the rest of us.”

“Tell me what happened that night.”

The pale man twisted abruptly and squawked in surprise and pain.

“Miss Cavanaugh . . .” Jackaby said.

“Tell me what happened the night I died.” Jenny’s voice was hollow. Pavel’s back was beginning to curve in an unnatural backward arc. The wind whipped and the windows rattled. A piece of plaster chipped off from the wall and spun across the room.

“Jenny.” Jackaby’s voice was soft. “We have time. He does not.”

Jenny’s shoulders relaxed a fraction and the cold eased up a few degrees. She nodded. “Make yourself comfortable, Pavel,” she said, although her captive looked anything but. He revolved slowly like a grotesque ornament from an invisible string. “You have about three hours to sunrise.”

Pavel continued to evade our questions for the rest of the night, although he was far from silent. He goaded Jenny at every chance, but she refused to rise to any more lurid implications about her fiancé and the mysterious murderess.

Eventually he turned his venom on Jackaby.

“The last Seer was much more fun,” he said.

I froze. There was no way this monster knew about Eleanor, I thought. I watched Jackaby’s face, but he did not give Pavel the satisfaction of a response.

“The two of you were friends, weren’t you?” Pavel continued. “What a pair. I don’t remember seeing you the day they sent the legion. You weren’t there, were you? You should have seen her. There was none of this standing around for hours nonsense. She was a firecracker, that one. What was her name? Ellen? Ella? Eleanor. That’s it.”

“Miss Rook,” Jackaby said with forced calm. “Does that window look smudged to you? It would be a shame to miss even the smallest bit of a beautiful sunrise.”

“I cleaned them just last week, sir,” I said.

The sky was already beginning to glow. Pavel strained against his invisible bonds. “Your little Eleanor wasn’t so fiery by the end,” he continued. “She broke. My benefactors saw to that.”

Jackaby set his jaw and did not respond.

“They had such high hopes for her. In the end she was just another disappointment.”

Jackaby took measured breaths.

He knew. Pavel knew. Jenny’s past and Jackaby’s—both of my dearest friends’ darkest hours were somehow tied to this awful man. I was reeling. He knew, and time was running out. The sky was ripening to a soft orange as the sun prepared to breach the horizon.

“Eleanor spoke of a man with red eyes and a long, dark hallway,” Jackaby said at last. “What was it? Where was it?”

Pavel chuckled. “Is that how she described it? A child’s mind is a beautiful, tender little thing, isn’t it?”